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peaceful people, who had taught them a great deal. As they travelled about the Island seasonally in search of food, they knew every inch of its surface and coastline. They could easily have advised the Acadians about suitable places in which to settle. In addition, some Acadians owned schooners with which they traded as far away as Newfoundland. They too would have known where there were good harbours and plenty of marshland. However, the men of the families who were planning to move to Lot One, took the precaution of going or sending representatives to faraway Charlottetown in order to ask the governor if anyone owned the area in which they were planning to settle. Whether the governor really did not know who - if anyone — owned Lot One or whether he lied to them out of mental laziness or cynicism, he told them that no one owned it. Based on this information, the group decided to leave in October, as soon as the harvest was in.

The founding group consisted of seven women and eight men with forty children among them. Most of the adults were in their thirties and were closely related. There were four Chiassons: Judith, Jacques, Madeleine, and Marie. At least one of these came originally from the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, which had remained a part of France. There were three Poirier brothers — Basile, Germain, and Pierre Pierre was to become a leading figure in the settlement, while Germain, who was a bachelor, left Tignish in 1800 Etienne Gaudet, who was married to one of the Chiassons, also left the new settlement in later years Two Bernards, Gregoire and Thersile, along with Judith Boudreault, Joseph DesRoches and his wife Anne Doucet t, and Joseph Richard with his wife Felicite Arsenault made up the rest of the group. Perhaps as many as half the present inhabitants of Tignish are descended from the six families that remained.

The journey, mostly made in the big Mi’kmaq canoes which could hold an entire family and its